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Thursday, December 9, 2010

Anti-Breastfeeding Dialogue on TV Irks Me

Funny enough, I was sitting on the couch breastfeeding Zofia while Louis was watching TV. He was watching The League on FX, (Season 2 Episode 11 to be exact) and I was only vaguely paying attention. A woman enters a restaurant scene with her baby and joins her husband and another couple at the table. They comment that there's a kids' menu, she declines and begins breastfeeding the baby.

Cue disgusted faces all around.

This is then followed by a scene in which the husband is lamenting to his buddies that his wife is still breastfeeding, he doesn't get to play with her boobs, and he's afraid his kid is going to be "weird." He fears that someday she's going to be squirting breastmilk in the boy's mouth from the dugout while he's playing baseball. All the men loudly concur that this activity is madness and shout the famous "If he can ask for it, he's too old for it!"

7 comments:

man. shit like that makes my blood boil. i know everyone doesn't feel the way we do about breastfeeding, and that's AOK, but seriously it doesn't need any more publicity about "being disgusting." GRAHH!!!

i would have turned that shit off. then again, i also refuse to see that newish adam sandler movie where they make fun of a 5 yr old breastfeeding. it looks like crap, but i also screamed irrational things at the tv every time the preview came on.

it is obnoxious, and Americans are very strange about this. from a cross-cultural and historical perspective, we are the outliers: most of the major religious books recommend nursing for 2-3 years. same in Greek and Roman societies. in traditional societies it's even longer, with an average of 4 years. it is only strange to us because we have sexualized breasts so much. but things may change as the current epidemic of obesity grows and people realize the tremendous physiological, not to mention emotional benefits. it has been well-documented that babies who are breastfed have lower rates of obesity, fewer allergies, higher IQ, and even lower rates of certain cancers. it is undeniably clear, and researchers have estimated that if at least 75% of new mothers nursed for at least a year, we would save billions in future medical costs. (right now only about 22% of mothers still nurse at 1 yr). and the benefits only increase the longer babies get to nurse. it is a culturally-constructed fiction that babies, toddlers, or even (gasp!) 4 and 5 yr olds are "messed up" by extended nursing. they tend to be healthier, smarter and more confident. Taiwan just passed a law that people can be arrested for BOTHERING women who are nursing. so cool. go Taiwan!

The show is all about "men being men" and basically they are pigs so I was not surprised when I saw this. I think it is sad though that they have to portray it in this way. Some shows just like to have a shock value and love to be off color. Case in point.